Larkin-Rice Parlor in Days Gone By

I stood in this very room last week. A lot has changed in 125 years, but even more remains the same. The photo shows the right front parlor of the Larkin-Rice House at 180 Middle Street, Portsmouth, NH. It was taken around 1900 by a man named Eliot Sturgis from Massachusetts. Mr. Sturgis took several “room portraits” of the recently renovated and decorated brick mansion.

The house was built in 1815 by Samuel Larkin, who made his fortune as an auctioneer during the War of 1812. Larkin sold off the maritime “prizes” captured by local privateers. The Larkins only lived in their grand home for a dozen years before Henry and Hannah Ladd moved in. Henry was a shipping merchant. The Ladds had eight children and those kids are the focus of another feature here for the graffiti they left in the carriage house.) The Ladd kids were the reason I was invited to tour the house, currently being remodeled into four condominiums. A fifth luxury unit going into the enormous brick carriage house at the back of the historic property. There’s something really cool in that carriage house that I’m itching to show you.

But first things first. In order to write about the Ladd kids and the carriage house, I needed to dig into the history of the main building. When I was in the front parlor, it was icy cold. The future condominium is being framed out and the floor is stacked with lumber. But if you take away the furnishings, this extraordinary room looks precisely as it does in the vintage photograph. The original fireplace is untouched. The molding is intact. The incredible palladium window and all its sister windows on the front of the building are being fully restored. Most amazing, I’m told, is the hand-decorated ceiling, “the last surviving Federal period molded plaster ceiling in Portsmouth.” The ceiling and dozens of other architectural features throughout the house are being lovingly preserved in this unique project.   

Steve McHenry, the architect in charge of the remodeling, recently described this  historic property as “a very special building, built by a very special, creative genius from the Portsmouth and Exeter area called Jonathan Folsom, who also was responsible for not only the South Church, the Unitarian Church in town, but several other important buildings.”
The house was almost a century old when this photograph was taken. Back then, it belonged to Dr. Moritz Emil Richter and his family. His daughter, Ellnora Ingebretsen Richter, married Arthur Hopkins Rice Jr. in 1911. Thus the name–the Larkin-Rice House.  Owners come and owners go, but this extraordinary structure lives on.
Copyright J. Dennis Robinson, all rights reserved.